Fantasticar!

And speaking of geeking out, we finally can see the new Fantasticar!

What is a Fantasticar you may ask?

It's only the Batmobile to the Fantastic Four!

The new movie comes out June 15th of next year. Between Spidey 3 and Harry Potter 5.


USA Today; First look: Fantasticar flows onto film

So the FF get thier main ride in the film. I can't wait to see this movie. I liked everything in the first film except Dr. Doom.

Geek Week #5!

Geek Week is a video put up by fans of comics, figures, games and shows. They're a lot like me. Or I'm a lot like them?

A couple of them post at RTM (Raving Toy Maniac) too.

Anyway, last Spring was the Comic Con International. That's where all the cool new figures for the coming year are displayed.

This Geek Week took place back then and the guys just barely updated.

Here is their You Tube broadcast.


And here is their site.

ARRRRRGH!

All day I tried to get on here and edit. All day I could not. Here at home I wanted to edit. Here at home the net did not work.

GAAAAHHHH!

Had to get it out of my system.

That is all.

NEW LAYOUT!

As you can see, I just updated my blog layout. What do you think?

Any thing a problem?

Is it hard to read?

animal cruelty vs animal friendship

Y'know, I'm sitting here on the web doing my thing and one of my cats is just lying here beside me, as calm as can be.

Back in the day (yes, I'm an old foggy, I say "Back in the day". Sheesh) I used to tease my pets like crazy. Nothing hurtful. Just putting tape on their feet, shoelaces just past their whiskers, that sort of thing.
I had my fun.
But the animals always looked at me with apprehension.

Today, I never tease these creatures. I play, I pet, I treat and I walk, but I never tease. Now these animals look at me with trust and love.

It's a good feeling.

email fun

There is something to be said for passing back fun email banter between writer friends. I just had a blast doing that. A writer friend of mine had her characters meet my characters. It was so fun!

I also was able to come up with ideas on where certain characters are "now". This will help me to project them there when the time comes.

I sure love letting the characters on my novels come out and play.

architect

The guy on the van share ride always calls me "architect". I'm not one, but I am working on architectural plans lately.

So maybe he's closer to the truth then he knows. :)

nothing new

I really have nothing special or new to type. It was a quick four day weekend. We kept the house clean, had a good Thanksgiving and talked to family.

I didn't get any writing done but I'll just try harder through out the week.

All in all, a plain ol' weekend.

Nothing new but maybe later this week. Watch this space.

(Can this blog BE any more boring?)

I hunger!

The smell of that turkey, covered in my wife's stuffing, is too much to handle.
I awoke to crave that wonderful scent, much like a young, sweet vampire child craves her first drop.

Come to me turkey! Come to me!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

I'm very thankful to the Lord for ALL His blessings. He's given my so much!

I'm grateful for my wife, who is both long suffering and supportive. ;)

I'm grateful for my children. I'm so glad they're healthy and sane (even if I'm not sane).

I'm grateful for the ability to write. I'm grateful that I had help from above to finish this novel, get it beta tested from the right people and then edited, and finally to have the burning desire to bang on agents' doors with it. I'm grateful that I know the "end of the story" even if I don't yet know how I get from here to there. LOL

Anyway, I'm so grateful for my life and all the things in it. I hope that my Friends and the mysterious lurkers out there each have a good Thanksgiving Day, even if it's not Thanksgiving where you are!

Some words

314 words.
Not a lot, huh?
That's all I've been able to add to my WIP today, but HEY! It's progress!
Hopefully I'll get more down this weekend.

I did come to a realization about my famous pirate cameo. The reason it doesnt feel right is becuase it belongs in book three! I'm pretty happy about that.

Harry Potter, the Order of the Phoenix behind the scenes!!!!

OH MY FLIPPIN COW! I... they had... they're going to use...

*starts to cry*

It's so beautiful! It's the book! They're doing all the great things that are in book 5. It's going to be so perfect.


It's the HBO behind the scenes look at the 5th film. So beautiful.

*Sniff!*

I'm getting perklempt.

Talk amongst yourselves. In the film When Harry Met Sally, how come Harry didn't have a scar? Discuss.

My figure want list

As I've said before, I have a weakness for action figures. Particularly, figures of DC Comics' Justice League and Justice Society, Marvel Comics' Avengers and Fantastic Four and assorted heroes and villains from both companies.

When I get a better sculpt or better articulated version, I pass my earlier ones to the kids. DC Direct's new Powergirl figure will be arriving this week. I wont get her till Christmas and that suits me just fine. When I get her, my old one goes to my daughter "K".

This is a picture of the figures I still have to get. Some are out now, some come out soon and some wont be out until next year.

What's up with me

My friend Jay posted a question, asking all of us at the Parodyverse site to tell about how our lives are going. I replied and now I figure it would be great bog material so here it is...


Lets see,
Well, things are in a holding pattern, pretty much. I feel very strongly like this novel will hit, but until either this New York agent from PMA finishes it and wants me, or some other agent wants me, I have to carry on and try to focus on other things. That particular agent was very interested in the concept of the book. She wanted the entire thing by the weekend of the 4th. She got it and she’s reading. Agents take a while so it’s a painful wait.

I was called into my bosses’ office Friday afternoon. I got the same lecture I’ve gotten at other jobs. I’m apparently “not bringing enough to the table” in regards to my skills and knowledge. I can see where that’s true, but I also find that my brain seems to have a hard time focusing on work.

It’s not the novel or anything like that. After a few months of drafting, I just seem to have a hard time thinking things out clearly. So I need to redouble my efforts and try to focus. Try to access my memories of working this stuff for over ten years. It’s hard because in some ways Friday’s meeting hurt. It wasn’t like the painful abuse I had at Stantec, but it still hurt. I’ve lost any positive feelings for this place. I can’t go looking right now either because no one hires during the holidays and I am not allotted the time to miss.

Family is good. We’ve still got a lot of cleaning to do before Thursday. We’re going to have a lot of family over for Thanksgiving, so we need to make sure the house is ready for that. Friday in our cleaning, I ran across those cards I promised you Jay. I’ll try to get them n the mail soon.

That’s about it. I’m in a Harry Potter mood because I just saw the preview for the next movie and I’m currently reading that book so that I remember everything that’s supposed to be in the movie. I’ll move onto book 6 next because book 7 comes out next year too.

I’ve slowed down my participation at Absolute Write because if I have time to go there, I should be working on my WIP. A WIP is the Work In Progress. So that’s book two. I want to jump back in and write like a crazy man, but this work bump kind of shook me up. I need to get back at the novel.

As for TV, I’m excited for more ‘Heroes’ and ‘Dr Who’, waiting on more ‘Stargate SG1’, ‘Ghosthunters’ and ‘Eureka’, and trolling through ‘Smallville’ just to see how that disappointing mess eventually ends.

That’s everything on this end.

Kinda Busy Weekend

The weekend started out at light speed. The wife and I marshaled the kids to help us clean two rooms in preparation for Thanksgiving. We cleaned and organized the heck out of it and for the most part have kept it that way.

We also set up Christmas. I sure love the lights and decorations. It's nice that we're all set up for that season, instead of having to do it later.

We have three more rooms to clean. We'll get to them in the evenings and my sweetie will be catching them during the day as well.

Finished off the weekend with our niece's birthday party which consisted of the usual fare followed by going to Happy Feet.
The movie was OK. It was cute and got me feeling the groove. The animation was of course incredible. I think they used real people footage instead of animating the people. Our nephew Steven thinks the humans were animated too. I could research, but it's not important.

Saw my preview. What preview? THE preview. Harry Potter 5! It was great! I recognized some scenes from the book. It's great to finally have this movie coming out. There is SO MUCH they HAVE to do to make the overall series make sense. I hope they have time to do it all.

Saw Steven (our nephew) tonight. It's always fun to see him. I was hoping he was going to come out for Thanksgiving but it looks like their visit will be horribly short.

Well, the weekend is done and I need to settle down for bed. Tomorrow it's back to work. The job has lost any flavor it had because of that stupid meeting/lecture on Friday. I'm not looking forward to it.
One day I will be working here, at my home, letting the story flow like water and producing entertainment for people. It's going to happen, but for now it's back to "Can't-measure-up" Land.

At least it's not like the last firm I worked for. THAT was Hell.
Sorry. "Heck"

I should be depressed this weekend.

Well it was bound to happen. After my first seven months my boss had me in his office for a closed door meeting. I'm apparently not giving as much as my résumé says I can. I need to try harder and put more effort into it.

I know I've been greatly distracted. I know I could work harder. I will, of course.
But this has happened before. Maybe I'm not confident as a drafter. Yeah, I suppose that's it. I'm very confident as a writer, but when it comes to the day to day grind "be a grown up and don’t screw up. Ask if you have questions, but don't ask because you should be able to do it now", well I never quite measure up.

I'm so sick of this crap.

Alright, so this brings us to the title of this entry.
I should be upset and depressed, but I'm not. When those feelings of doubt and frustration, fear of the future and the deep questions about my own self worth, when those feeling start to rear their ugly heads, a calm feeling comes over me. A feeling that tells me that this is all a temporary situation. Wait for something very big and positive that's around the corner.

So I will work and schedule my time better. I'll get more done and try to think through my day job to improve. All the while I'll listen to that little voice that has been right so many times in my life and has never been wrong.

Instead of despair, I feel confidence. That's not normal for me but I know enough to trust this external prompting of hope and forge on.

*Hides under blanket* Doctor Who Spoilers

Wow! THAT was a great episode! For all intents and purposes, it looks like those guys woke up Satan. Once again, the show has me reeling. I sooo can't wait till next Friday!

He Who Shall Not Be Named

YES!

My fav Harry Potter site, Mugglenet , has revealed the first movie poster for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

It looks great!
Voldemort!

I CAN'T WAIT!

Slow of speech

Yesterday I typed a little thing that offended a very important person in my life. That shook up things and so, in trying to make things better for that important person, I wrote an email to a freind. Then, after I apolojized to the important person we were able to talk. Then I sent another email to the freind, apolojizing for how he first email might have sounded.
Turned out my freind never recieved that first email and was hurt from my second.

I screwed up, again!

In the Bible, Moses (I think it was him) called himself "slow of speach". I see that as he goofed when he spoke. How many out there do the same? Come on hidden lurkers, I KNOW you do! Yeah, you in the back, on the right! You've said or written things one way but didnt mean it in the way it was taken.
We all have.

Anyway, I messed up bad. I've apolojized again for my screw ups. All I can do is carry on and do everything I can to not make those same mistakes.

Sigh.
Life.

The Trickshot Mythland Special is up!

Finally I finished my latest Parodyverse story. It's not very long and ties into other people's stories, but it's the newest thing I've written for the PV in a long time.

Trickshot Mythland Special

I threw in a subplot that should help me get back on track with my PV stuff. I figure if I try to write one PV story a week, and keep it small, I'll be able to catch all my characters and stories up and put them where they need to be.

Now, after I finish reading a freind's manuscript I can return to my WIP. A WIP is another name for Work In Progress. That's the current novel I'm writing. Annabelle & Roland, Threats From Sea & Shadow. It's book two in the Annabelle series.

The muse is happy. :)

Requests abound!

Another request for a partial. I'm not exactly sure how many that is now. Shadow Mountain, a small publisher here in Utah also mailed me stating that in 8-10 weeks they'll decide. This new fellow, an agent from New York, also just emailed me and requested 50 pgs. He stated in 8-10 weeks if I haven't heard from him to email. I still want Adrienne and that's still in the air, waiting on her thoughts.

Wow. So many out and some getting read. STILL no clue who will get hooked. Dani is voice number 10. My friend, Dani, is finishing the manuscript and she echos the other nine in the fact that she gets lost in it and wants more. Which agent will feel the same?
SOMETHING will happen, but when? Who?

Time will tell.

Wiblik's BLOG!

A long time ago at a college far away in the land of sheep, I met my very good friend, Willard. We've been through a lot in the fourteen years we've known each other.
He's a great guy who is in the process of writing a novel.

I gave him the net name "Wiblik".

He's started his own blog.

Please support him and check it out here...

http://wilblk200.blogspot.com/

Darren Shan!

Darren Shan is the author of the popular fantasy/Young Adult books called Cirque Du Freak. My teacher Friend Jeff suggested I read his copies so I did. I like them.
Last night I sent an email to Darren Shan after visiting his site again. I told him about how his is inspiring me as well as how great it is that he gets kids to read (something Jeff and I are both very thankful for). I told him of my plans to be an author of vampire tales for children, too.

Here is his site.
http://www.darrenshan.com/

This morning I received a reply! He told me "Best of luck"! That gets me even more pumped up!

Thought I'd share. :)

I give up.

OK. I give up.

Back in the summer, during the big push to get the novel finished, I started listening to me vampire mp3s.
For those who don't know, mp3 are music files. They are more compressed and you can fit over a hundred on a CD.
So after a while of listening to that September came along and being a Halloween buff, I switched to my Halloween mp3s. I listened to that for two months and recently I tried my hand at my normal music.
Well one of the local radio stations has switched to Christmas music. I tried to resist it's pull but with the kids singing it and my love for that holiday, I cant resist anymore.
So I'm listening to all my Christmas music.
I know there are a lot of Scrooges out there, but I'm not one of them.

What? Did you think this post was about quiting the novel? Are you insane? I couldn't if I tried. And I wouldn't want to anyway.

New Spidey 3 trailer!

OH! OH! OH! OH!

Yes, I know I might be over excited but I just saw the new trailer for Spider-man 3.
OH this is going to rock!

http://www.ifilm.com/presents/spiderman3

A big shout out to ifilm.com for showing this.

May 4th!

MAN I can't wait!

Roland's true love has a name!

I finally have a great name for one of my characters! It's someone who will become very important to Roland later in the series. A big THANK YOU to Dani for helping me. The name I had chosen wasn't quite right and she's really good with names.
So thanks Dani!

Salutations from a vampire muse

Hello gentle beings,

As you can plainly see by the hour, it is late into the morning. I, being a child of night, simply cannot sleep. It must have been the raccoon I had last night. I wonder what he ate?

No matter, the point of this “post” is for me to introduce myself. I thought I should use my scribe’s forum to inform others of my existence. A couple years ago an event brought to my mind the need to tell my life story so I found this mortal and watched him. He seemed the right sort so I impressed upon him the desire to write my tale.

All I will say here is that my name is Annabelle Foresight. I was born the thirteenth of October in the year Sixteen-hundred and Seventy-Seven. Yes, I’m over three hundred years old.
I look ten, however because when I truly was ten a man, no, a creature of ancient evil killed my parents and left my older brother and myself in the woods to be slaughtered by wolves. A wonderfully sweet woman named Eliza rescued us. We would have died but she gave us the dark curse of vampirism.
For three hundred years we’ve roamed the Earth. I have seen much in that time. It is my fondest wish that those stories be told.

Well, that is enough from me. I’m very tired and so I’m going to try and crawl back into my coffin and sleep. It’s a good thing we have those thick curtains or I would not be able to operate this computer thing so late in the morning.

Good day.

Annabelle Foresight
Vampire muse

Scan Day

Sucking on a watermelon JollyRancher and just sittin' here, stalling. I suppose I'd better get to work.

It's HAPPY-FUN-SCAN-DAY! As a CAD drafter, I normally enjoy a lazy job of sitting on my tush, drafting plans while jamming to music all day. Today is Thursday so that means it's the day where I go into the archive room and run lots of big hand drawn plans through the scanner so they are archived as gifs. That means being on my feet all day. I know, I know, wa-wa-wa. It's nothing compared to the real hard work the working guys have to do everyday.
Actually, I like it. I get to jam to music and do this task. It's a break from the same thing and more story ideas come to my mind.
Guess I'd better get started.

Book Fair Musings

Well, a busy day but a ok one!
It was Parent/teacher conference night. The kids are doing better. L is improving by leaps and bounds! I'm very proud of her! K is above her level. She's my little Hermonie. S is doing great too! Need to stamp out that spelling bug but otherwise not too bad. D is doing well but needs some special care. That's expected, considering his age.

It's early November and the sun goes down a great deal earlier. Walking to the car across the school parking lot at night stuck a cord for me. I see a school of monster children. Annabelle would HAVE to be a teacher. She wouldn't want it any other way. I'm not talking books devoted to it or anything, but sometime in books 10-13, in the modern era, I'll have to put the school in.

The school is doing a book fair. Man, that's what "she" wants! I feel it in my bones. The novel HAS to be in book fairs, libraries, schools... everywhere! I looked over the many YA fantasy books available to inspire children and entertain them. So many caught my eye. I could just about see it there. I mean, I could imagine what it would be like to have Annabelle & Roland among those books, getting picked up by little fingers.
"Mommy! That's Annabelle! Teacher's reading that in class! It was so cool the way Annabelle told those kidnappers to leave that boy alone! I wish *I* could stand up to Betsy Patterson like Annabelle stood up to those men!"
Sigh.
So close I can touch it. So far I can't. I can feel it's going to happen, but when? Who will represent? What publisher will publish? I so badly want Scholastic.

Ah well. One day.
One day.

Thoughts on tomorrow

Tired.

I really should go to bed earlier. Tomorrow I'll need to focus on the job more. During my break I'll need to try and get that Trickshot in the Mythlands one shot story started. I'll have no time to write PV stuff on Thursday so it would be best if I could get it farther along then just thoughts in by brain.

Besides, there is a limited amount of time for me to write Parodyverse stuff. That muse is a real strong feeling and when I stay away too long "she" starts pounding at the back of my mind.

"Scooott."
"Go 'way. I owe my friends some Tricksho..."
"Scooooott. What of my brother? What of his travails with the vampire pirates? What of his affection for that girl pirate, Racheal? What of my constant search through London with Thomas?"
"But I'm waiting on Adrienne Rosado of PMA. She still has that weekend read. She should..."
"We both know nothing is certain except the ultimate eventuality. I shall have my desire to be published but it's the when and who that remains a mystery. You can not stall my story for too long...
... I will not allow it."
"Not those eyes again. Sigh."
"Hehehehe. Don't worry. Go back and write for them. Just do not stray too long. Others must see my tales."
"You know, you're really obsessive."
"I'm a three-hundred year old child. What did you expect?"

Huh? Oh! Sorry. I must have dozed off. Anyway, thanks for tuning in on my boring blog. I need to write... Trickshot stuff. Yeah. That's it.

Night.

(Man, I must be tired. Why is the window open?)

Adam Diller, artist extraordinare!

Adam posts at the PV (short for Parodyverse) as the hapless everyman who may or may not be fake. His potential fake man is called Visionary.

More on him later. At any rate, here is a nice close pic of Annabelle, my muse, as done by Adam. I would love to have Adam do the cover and chapter illustrations, but seeing as I'm still trying to get an agent, that idea is far far away from the table anyway.

And the guy is busy as a graphic artist for his full time job so time is very short for him.

Anyway, thanks again for this fine piece of work!




Oh, and I would not be much of a friend if I didn't give his link...

Adam Diller's Home Page! Check it out! Clicky-clicky!

Gotta catch 'em all, Avenger style!

Soon they will be mine! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

Ok, I'm crazy.

See, I like action figures. Actually, I like super hero action figures, namely the DC and Marvel ones. Namely the Justice League and the Avengers.

Well, Hasbro has taken over the license to manufacture said Marvel figures. This next year we get two assortments of Marvel Legends figures.

In assortment #2 we get Yellow Jacket, She Hulk and Quicksilver.

As an Avenger collector, I've very excited about these!

Here is the link to the updated pics of said figures...

http://www.wizarduniverse.com/magazine/toyfare/002282532.cfm

Wizard Universe dot com has given us a look.

Thanks, guys at Wizard Universe!

Now to plan the figure shuffle in my collection for these babies!

RAVING TOY MANIAC, my 3rd Fav spot on the web

The Raving Toy Maniac board. It’s a heaven for action figure collectors like myself. I go there to see what’s new and visit with my fellow Buzzers. If you’re into figures, it’s the place to be.

ABSOLUTE WRITE, my 2nd Fav spot on the web!

The Absolute Write Message Board!A place for writers, editors, agents and wanna-be writers to hang out, share info and talk about the craft. It’s an EXCELLENT site to go to if you want to try your hand at writing. They even separate the message boards by book genre!

TALES OF THE PARODYVERSE, FAV SITE #1

TALES OF THE PARODYVERSE

It’s an online community where people share stories about a fictional universe. Anything can happen and usually does! Come over and write, read, reply or just lurk. We’ll entertain you. Some of the best creators frequent there!

Trickshot rules!

Trickshot aka Carl Bastion is a charicter I ripped off for the Parodyverse site I belong to. He's brash, arrogant and cocky. He's a man's man and nothing like me.
I created him by taking 1 part DC Comics Green Arrow and 1 part Marvel Comics Hawkeye, stir well and let simmer.

He can be read in action here...

http://www.mangacool.net/parodyverse

The discovery of a muse

I have a goal. I want to become a professional writer. September of 2004, I was struck with a concept that would not go away. I watched a vampire movie that normally I would not have and saw a little girl vampire whom grabbed my interest. After she was killed in the movie I could not get her out of my mind. As I pondered the concept I realized it wasn’t her I was thinking of. I just didn’t know who it was.

I decided to write about a child vampire for my favorite site, the Parodyverse. When I sat down to flush out the character she appeared. No, not for real. What do you think I am? Crazy? No, in my head I could see her. I knew her as well as myself and when I wrote her she became more. She WANTED more. Posting little short stories on a site where only five people respond or see them wasn’t enough. She needs to be in schools, libraries, bookstores, everywhere! She needs to reach out to other children, frightened, scared children who need an example or at the very least a bit of entertainment to make the pain go away for a few minutes.

Sweet, gentle, smart, determined Annabelle Foresight and her adventurous, rebellious brother Roland were “born” that moment. I had to do something I had never before did. I had to push myself, whenever I could, however I could, to put these two fictional kids into a novel. I longed to be a part of their world, Annabelle’s world, and the only way to ease that longing was to write.

Two years later the novel is finished. I gave it to nine people to edit. All nine found things that needed to be fixed and I fixed them. They were friends, strangers and even two teachers of the age level this Young Adult fantasy novel is geared towards. All nine, despite some of them not being into the subject matter or being critical in nature) could not put it down.
Now it’s finished and I’m in search of an agent to represent it to the publishing world. I know this will happen. Annabelle wants to get out there into the world and she will. It’s only a matter of time.

It's called ANNABELLE & ROLAND, THE NIGHT CHILDREN. Watch for it!

First blog!

Hey! I've started this thing and like normal, I just have no time to do it justice. But it has begun!

Expect more soon.